[New-bugs-announce] [issue28254] Add C API for gc.enable, gc.disable, and gc.isenabled

[Joe Jevnik]

New submission from Joe Jevnik:

I was writing an extension module that was working with weakrefs and wanted to ensure that the GC would not run for a block of code. I noticed that gc.enable/gc.disable are not exposed to C and the state of the gc is in a static variable so it cannot be mutated from an extension.

This change adds an easier way to access this functionality in the C api without going through an import or PyObject_Call.

I am wondering where to document these functions as well as PyGC_Collect. I didn't see that function anywhere in the docs (and didn't know about it) so I would like to make them more visible. My first thought was Doc/c-api/gcsupport.rst but this is not in service of supporting the GC, it is about the state of the GC itself. If that seems like a decent place I could add a small section at the bottom about interacting with the GC and document these new functions and PyGC_Collect.

I'm sorry if this is exposed elsewhere. If it is I can try to add some links to i

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components: Extension Modules
files: gc-capi.patch
keywords: patch
messages: 277245
nosy: llllllllll
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Add C API for gc.enable, gc.disable, and gc.isenabled
versions: Python 3.7
Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file44787/gc-capi.patch

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